Noob to noob, some advice
Feb 17, 2016 17:46:18 GMT -5
via mobile
slayernz, Alex Fury, and 4 more like this
Post by capthawk on Feb 17, 2016 17:46:18 GMT -5
Hello prospective Star Traders!
First, there are many and more in depth guides in this Forum. I'd advise spending a lot of time simply looking through post titles and reading ones that apply to the many questions you have if you've come here.
Be aware, I have not found all information in one place here. There is no guidebook that has it all as far as I can tell, although many come close. I'll shout out a few in a minute.
Ok, here are some keys. It's up to you to find where they fit, and what doors that unlocks.
1. Star Traders is NOT like other RPG you may have played. Simply hammering your experience points into skills and trying to max them all simply won't work, at least not for a long game. There is no god-mode unless you play the two easiest difficulties where you can't die.
2. Speaking of which, as you advance into higher difficulties you will die. A lot, with many captains. Some of the most veteran players posts on here include stories of death before even landing for the first time. Other vet players tell of massive level captains dying, sometimes humiliating deaths to seemingly inferior foes.
3. Read the in-game help guide. A very nice feature is you can access it any time, from space menu or status button on planet.
4. Stick with a class. At least until you can master the difficulty you're at. When you exhuast the help guide, come back here and research that class for more insight.
5. Free vs. Elite. Almost two different games. Feel "free" to linger in free-verse, I did. It's a blast. It's a great place to learn, but the real limitation is the difficulty caps at I believe roughly Level 23. So just know it's a good place to perfect strategy for beginning to lower mid levels, but after that you're not learning anything. To clarify, for example even though Hard difficulty tells you enemy captain will be 125% of your level, after that threshold you'll advance but he won't. To simplify, buy Elite.
»» unnashamed plug: I don't buy apps.I find there are so many playable free games I can usually just cycle through. But ST is different, at least for me. Elite gives you what the Trese Bros advertise, but so much more. It's like free is your first big boy bicycle, and elite is getting your own private jet lol
6. Good contributors and threads to check out. This is just a few, it's easy to see who knows their Quadrant here. Also, post questions. The team here is amazing, from
Dev to mod to community, you'll get an answer and likely some laughter along the way.
Posters: the devs are Corey Trese and fallen (Andrew). Anything they say you heed.
slayernz, lurker, Officer Genious, Atlas screamed, rabidrabbit, ...I'm forgetting some good ones, but that's a start
Threads: Brother Derwins Guide to hunting Aliens. All of the pinned ones are pinned for a reason, and many come closet to covering the game comprehensively. The what, why and how to of favorite ships, again there are many that contain good information.
Overall, the Forum isn't overly massive, and easy enough to navigate page by page to look for hidden nuggets of information.
7. Star Traders in incredibly intricate. I believe Corey stated with justifiable pride that there are over 20,000 lines of equations at work. 20,000. So never feel bad if you feel like you just don't get it in the game. I don't know that anyone does completely. It's possible TB made a game so well it confounds even them at times, the creators. Quick example that's blown my mind lately is that where you get your torpedoes matters. Faction matched give you a bonus, then it degrades down all the way to torps you loot being inefficient, low damage junk. ST knows whose torps I carry.
8a. Pacing. Above all, WHY rush? Our game is turn based, with a clock (the years, expressed in years by 10 base and weeks count to 52 before the year turns.) working against you. Meaning, the game is designed to get exponentially harder as time passes, within the parameters of difficulty level. You must balance that with earning enough experience, and allocating it PROPERLY in order to survive. At any given moment you are either ahead of or behind that ratio.
8b. What makes game time advance vs.WHAT DOESN'T. This is almost getting to theory of relativity level stuff. Let me just say there's a reason there's many things that you can do to maximize the time that will pass in advance of it passing. If you move so much as one "dot", which is one AU or astronautical unit, the clock advances a week. Big deal, right? Yet just 3 more it's a month gone by. And on. Pay attention to a trades effect on the clock next time, especially a large transaction on a world with high security rating. A ship repair. Yet, unlike the real world. If we sit still time rolls not on by. We can train all we want, building skills by massive amounts, and no time passes. Some magic allows us to chat with royalty, imbibe spice and accrue valuable intel via rumor. No time passes. We can read up on prices and politics at leisure in space or at port, and no time passes. Sorry to hammer on this but it's so key.
Likely to run out of characters. Here is some stuff you need to dig up. EHR, SHR, CER, CGR. Those are all ship ratios. Ship signature and fuel management. Politics, politics, politics.
Look, there are few to none of the aspects that the game possesses that can be ignored entirely for very long. Not at high difficulty, and not at high turn count. The game knows. It watched you from the moment you moved your first dot. It always knows...
Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope this gives you some keys to some doors.
First, there are many and more in depth guides in this Forum. I'd advise spending a lot of time simply looking through post titles and reading ones that apply to the many questions you have if you've come here.
Be aware, I have not found all information in one place here. There is no guidebook that has it all as far as I can tell, although many come close. I'll shout out a few in a minute.
Ok, here are some keys. It's up to you to find where they fit, and what doors that unlocks.
1. Star Traders is NOT like other RPG you may have played. Simply hammering your experience points into skills and trying to max them all simply won't work, at least not for a long game. There is no god-mode unless you play the two easiest difficulties where you can't die.
2. Speaking of which, as you advance into higher difficulties you will die. A lot, with many captains. Some of the most veteran players posts on here include stories of death before even landing for the first time. Other vet players tell of massive level captains dying, sometimes humiliating deaths to seemingly inferior foes.
3. Read the in-game help guide. A very nice feature is you can access it any time, from space menu or status button on planet.
4. Stick with a class. At least until you can master the difficulty you're at. When you exhuast the help guide, come back here and research that class for more insight.
5. Free vs. Elite. Almost two different games. Feel "free" to linger in free-verse, I did. It's a blast. It's a great place to learn, but the real limitation is the difficulty caps at I believe roughly Level 23. So just know it's a good place to perfect strategy for beginning to lower mid levels, but after that you're not learning anything. To clarify, for example even though Hard difficulty tells you enemy captain will be 125% of your level, after that threshold you'll advance but he won't. To simplify, buy Elite.
»» unnashamed plug: I don't buy apps.I find there are so many playable free games I can usually just cycle through. But ST is different, at least for me. Elite gives you what the Trese Bros advertise, but so much more. It's like free is your first big boy bicycle, and elite is getting your own private jet lol
6. Good contributors and threads to check out. This is just a few, it's easy to see who knows their Quadrant here. Also, post questions. The team here is amazing, from
Dev to mod to community, you'll get an answer and likely some laughter along the way.
Posters: the devs are Corey Trese and fallen (Andrew). Anything they say you heed.
slayernz, lurker, Officer Genious, Atlas screamed, rabidrabbit, ...I'm forgetting some good ones, but that's a start
Threads: Brother Derwins Guide to hunting Aliens. All of the pinned ones are pinned for a reason, and many come closet to covering the game comprehensively. The what, why and how to of favorite ships, again there are many that contain good information.
Overall, the Forum isn't overly massive, and easy enough to navigate page by page to look for hidden nuggets of information.
7. Star Traders in incredibly intricate. I believe Corey stated with justifiable pride that there are over 20,000 lines of equations at work. 20,000. So never feel bad if you feel like you just don't get it in the game. I don't know that anyone does completely. It's possible TB made a game so well it confounds even them at times, the creators. Quick example that's blown my mind lately is that where you get your torpedoes matters. Faction matched give you a bonus, then it degrades down all the way to torps you loot being inefficient, low damage junk. ST knows whose torps I carry.
8a. Pacing. Above all, WHY rush? Our game is turn based, with a clock (the years, expressed in years by 10 base and weeks count to 52 before the year turns.) working against you. Meaning, the game is designed to get exponentially harder as time passes, within the parameters of difficulty level. You must balance that with earning enough experience, and allocating it PROPERLY in order to survive. At any given moment you are either ahead of or behind that ratio.
8b. What makes game time advance vs.WHAT DOESN'T. This is almost getting to theory of relativity level stuff. Let me just say there's a reason there's many things that you can do to maximize the time that will pass in advance of it passing. If you move so much as one "dot", which is one AU or astronautical unit, the clock advances a week. Big deal, right? Yet just 3 more it's a month gone by. And on. Pay attention to a trades effect on the clock next time, especially a large transaction on a world with high security rating. A ship repair. Yet, unlike the real world. If we sit still time rolls not on by. We can train all we want, building skills by massive amounts, and no time passes. Some magic allows us to chat with royalty, imbibe spice and accrue valuable intel via rumor. No time passes. We can read up on prices and politics at leisure in space or at port, and no time passes. Sorry to hammer on this but it's so key.
Likely to run out of characters. Here is some stuff you need to dig up. EHR, SHR, CER, CGR. Those are all ship ratios. Ship signature and fuel management. Politics, politics, politics.
Look, there are few to none of the aspects that the game possesses that can be ignored entirely for very long. Not at high difficulty, and not at high turn count. The game knows. It watched you from the moment you moved your first dot. It always knows...
Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope this gives you some keys to some doors.
